General
Mexican Troops Kill 19 Suspected Cartel Members in Sinaloa Shootout
The killings in the northwest state of Sinaloa raise questions as to whether Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is taking a tougher approach to cartels.
Mexican soldiers killed 19 suspected cartel members and arrested a local cartel leader following a shootout on Monday in northwest Mexico, a region that has been shaken by an eruption of bloodshed between two rival factions of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel.
The arrest and the killings in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state, took place after soldiers repelled an attack by a group of more than 30 armed men, Mexico’s defense ministry said on Tuesday night. The suspected cartel operatives who were not killed managed to flee the scene, the defense ministry said, while the army suffered no casualties.
The killings reflect how the escalating violence in Sinaloa is quickly shaping into a test for Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office earlier this month vowing to continue the strategy of her predecessor in attempting to avoid armed confrontations with criminal groups in a bid to limit mass casualties.
But the death toll from Monday’s shootout could point to a pivot from the approach of the previous president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, security analysts said. The episode is one of the bloodiest of its kind since soldiers killed 22 a decade ago, in an incident in which the military was exposed for having executed people who had surrendered.
“We might be seeing a more heavy-handed approach,” said Falko Ernst, an independent security analyst based in Mexico City. While he cautioned that details of the shootout remain hazy, Mr. Ernst added that the episode on Monday could show that Mexico’s military is preparing to intervene more forcefully in cartel infighting to fend off a broader surge of violence around the country.
Ms. Sheinbaum’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Traditionally a center of cartel activity, Sinaloa state had been relatively calm in recent years until tensions flared in late July over the betrayal of a godfather of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, who was tricked by a son of his former ally and cartel co-founder, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo.
